Some Semblance of Normalcy
Hypochondria and The Two Towers
We had the objective of climbing both Fine Jade (5.11-) and the North Face of Castleton tower (5.11-) in a single day. With the strenuous, meandering approach and the absolute darkness, illuminated only by our headlamps and the vague stars, we followed the well-worn path to the narrow ridgeline between The Rectory and Castleton Tower. The omnipotent sun had just taken its rest, and the silhouettes of the primordial stone giants blended into the enveloping darkness.
The gentle desert whispered quietly as we fought through the darkness below on our way to those precipitous towers, forever inert under the vague stars. All should have been perfect. But I mostly ignored it all and centered on the numbing panic attack I had experienced a few days prior. You see, I had the gift of hypochondria.
Some would say it wasn’t THAT severe, but as someone with hypochondria, I found everything to be severe. Trying to fully take in the entirety of the moment was impossible. The present was lost to the past, and I was ruminating about finger twitches.
In my mind I was sitting alone in my college bedroom, reassuring myself. “It’s just a few twitches,” I kept repeating. “You climb constantly and that’s hard on your nerves. You’ve been taking Adderall, and you have anxiety.” I was searching for some excuse or reprieve and failing miserably. Perhaps it was just a side-effect of being 22. Maybe it was just a side-effect of life. Anyways.
I had repeated that tired mantra to myself and no matter how rare Google told me the disease was, I knew that Google was wrong. I had to be the exception. What did the omniscient Google machine know of death? Certainly no more than my 22-year-old anxiety-induced brain. But after I read WebMD, I knew. I knew that Google did, in fact, know quite a few things about death. Those twitches were no longer just simple twitches. They were early signs of ALS, and I was about to die. The moment was ruined.
At the base of the massive ridge and with the silhouette of Castleton confronting the cold moon, I felt like Frodo before The Eye of Sauron. But instead of bearing a troubled ring and following a loyal hobbit gardener, I bore a troubled mind and followed an overly eager, strangely ripped pharmacologist. Here was my Samwise. Here was Dr. G. A man of perfect efficiency. A man with a body carved of stone. A man significantly shorter than me but whose drive was larger than the titans as he fearlessly led our charge to the knife’s edge that connected the tower of Sauron’s eye to Mount Doom.
But as we reached the ridgeline, as if spotted by the great eye of Castleton, the night wind begun to soar over a mile a minute. Dr. G had tried to say something about not blowing over the edge, but at the time all I could hear were the unintelligible yells of a mortal trying to interrupt the gods.
We cut through the stolid wall of darkness towards The Rectory with our headlamps like pinpricks of light in an endless void. As we tried our best not to be blown off into the infinite abyss on either side of us, I began to question why exactly we decided to approach at night. Perhaps it was so the eye would have a harder time finding us, or perhaps it was Dr. G’s robotic efficiency. Anyways.
Fortunately, our pinpricks of light eventually discovered the great colossus of The Rectory shrouded in the blackness of space. We quickly sought refuge from the deafening winds in a small shallow hobbit cave below the base. Sheltered from the crashing winds, we tried to get some rest for the dawn of tomorrow’s adventure.
As I laid there listening to Zephyrus’ howls and Dr. G’s snores, thoughts of hypochondria quickly interrupted my brief reprieve. I compulsively began to repeat my second mantra:
“I’m not twitching now. Twitches from ALS would surely get worse over time. I’m not twitching now.”
Thankfully I had no access to WebMD. I laid there in a state of purgatory, trying not to cross into hell, and before I had time to finally rest my eyes, Zephyrus began to whisper and the sun peaked up under the bedsheet of the horizon.
Having never really slept, we were awoken by another member of our party who had decided to sleep at the campsite and speed hike the morning of. He crouched above us like Gollum, waiting for the perfect moment to pounce on the unsuspecting hobbits. Dr. G was not impressed. He simply grunted and made his coffee. As Gollum simultaneously questioned our bivy skills and bragged about his talent for hiking, Dr. G and I ate a meager breakfast of apple cinnamon quaker oats, Klonopin, and 5-Hour Energy. I imagined these were the same ingredients used in lembas bread. Five minutes after we had finished our breakfast, Gollum’s partners arrived – winded and shocked at how fast their partner could hike. We were equally as shocked.
Standing below the first pitch, with fresh TC Pros, cams chaotically racked, and recycled tape gloves slowly peeling the hair off my wrists, I felt some semblance of normalcy. Despite not having slept that night, or many of the nights before, I felt strong and thought how silly it was to be anxious. I recalled how a few days prior I was so anxious that I couldn’t hold up my pillow. I had awoken with extremely sore forearms with a pump deeper than anything I had ever before experienced. I had simply read too much WebMD the night before and my anxiety decided to give me symptoms the next day. The dreaded WebMD pump. The strange anxiety pump had mostly retreated by the time we had driven into Utah, my mind more thankfully distracted, and by the time I stood under Fine Jade that crisp spring morning it was entirely gone. I stood there, amazed and terrified about the powers of the mind. I laughed, thinking how stupid it would have been to get pumped before actually climbing anything. As the light began to kiss the surface of Fine Jade, I knew I was ready. This day I could pick up my pillow.
Still kind of groggy and not wholly conscious due to the shitty bivy at the base, I began the charge up the first pitch. Naturally, I had forgotten many essentials – including a simple jacket. This did not deter me. I simply did what I had always done – borrow my climbing partner’s spare. In this case, the dirty jacket that Dr. G let me use as a pillow. The climbing was pure and aesthetic – as we dream all multipitch climbs to be. By the time I had placed the second cam all invasive thoughts ceased to exist. Everything ceased to exist – except perhaps only the moment. The magnificently present moment. Gollum and friends cheered me on through the crux. By the time I reached the idyllic twin cracks right below the first anchor my spirit, heart, and soul forgot all measures and manners of death.
Dr. G also had the spirit of a man born again. It seemed like he magically teleported next to me immediately after I put him on belay. He continued on, leaping up the bulging finger crack crux of pitch two like a salmon graciously swimming up a sandstone river. Every finger lock euphoria, every cam placement bliss. I felt everything vicariously from the belay, like a father living his high school days of glory through his son who is honestly just happy to be playing JV. We both knew we’d likely never play varsity and that was okay. After Dr. G finished swimming and put me on belay, I followed his stream of cams like perfectly placed breadcrumbs to the base of the third pitch.
It felt as though as soon as I reached him I was already embarking up the next pitch. Time became convoluted. We did not even speak, except to grumble “it’s just bolts.” Our minds and spirits so in sync that we briefly became telepathic.
As I made my way up the final 5.11 bolted face to the summit, Zephyrus returned, or maybe it was Saruman, casting a weather spell. Regardless of which specific god or being opposed us, I was unable to hear Dr. G as the winds raged on and the rope became troublingly full of slack. I couldn’t see Dr. G either. He resided somewhere under large protruding ledges. Halfway through the pitch, with my new-found telepathy powers disappearing faster than they had arrived, I began to downclimb. The slack was enough that if I were to fall, I would unquestionably land on the ledge below. We wouldn’t be able to climb Castleton if I had broken legs. So, I downclimbed to Dr. G and explained the slack situation. He called me a weenie, and I immediately went back up the pitch. Time was of the upmost essence.
Upon the summit and our first victory the winds retreated wounded and defeated. We took in the view of the Eastern morning sun. Only the faint sounds of Gollum and his partners toiling away below could be heard. Even though I would never be able to comprehend it, in that moment I believe I felt what it was like to live without fear. I could feel infinity.
But however eternal and lively that moment felt, Dr. G was a utilitarian, and romantic contemplation could wait for the car. We had to get moving as soon as possible to have enough time to cross the ridgeline, climb The North Face of Sauron’s eye, and descend the tower before dark. So only enough time for one selfie.
We quickly repelled and halfway down the route we ran into our brethren – Gollum and friends. We decided to take another stellar selfie - me flipping off the camera, Gollum and friends feeling proud, and Dr. G cringing…. at least we all had helmets.
Once on the ground we felt strong and psyched with the 5-Hour Energy and benzos still coursing through our veins. With a gallon jug of water in each of our hands and the desert wind at our backs, we sprinted across the narrow ridge to Castleton Tower.
Dr. G began the second wave charge up the first pitch of The North Face. He plugged number 3’s and ran it out like a true argonaut until he took a bitchin’ calcite whipper at the top of the pitch. As I belayed at the base, my heart and spirit were fully awake. Anxiety for the unknown was an entirely alien concept at that point. Rare diseases were meager myths from the past like elves or dragons. There be no dragons here. Anyways.
Dr. G finished the pitch and still toting his borrowed jacket, my sprightly puckered ass followed the charge.
“Perhaps the 5-Hour Energy is beginning to wear off,” I thought to myself as I finished following the first pitch. As I led the second pitch, my feet slipping on the sordid calcite, I began to feel the Klonopin wear off as well. I guess there do be dragons here.
The fear had me quickly placing a few (or many) unextended pieces. The calcite, like Sauron’s ring, began to whisper ominous secrets through the ether. His lies told me that the cams would slip right out of the cracks if I fell. I was confused, but I had the spirit. I repeated to myself the age-old trad climbing mantra as I continued desperately placing unextended pieces:
“Just don’t fall. You are trad climbing, it’s not like you trust your gear anyways.”
The subsequent rope-drag quickly decimated any feeling or thought of having the spirit. My mantra along with my biceps began to fail me. I felt like I was curling 50lbs dumbbells every time I tried to clip a piece. The feebleness had become palpable along with the never-ending cramps in both my arms.
However, despite the feebleness and cramping I had felt in that moment, I was never once reminded of how I couldn’t pick up a pillow. Never once reminded of some rare disease. It was real. It was supposed to be there. I was supposed to be there, ready to cast my burden with the help of my jacked Ph. D Samwise.
Eventually I curled my way to the top of the second pitch – the tendons in the creases of my elbows burning hotter than the fires of Mt. Doom itself. I put Dr. G on belay. “Surely he will be just as tired as I am,” I thought, still clinging to the remnants of our shared telepathy. But he made quick work of the pitch and began to rerack for the finale without a hint of fatigue in either mind or body. His massive biceps bulged in excitement for the final push. Now I was simply confused and lacking the spirit – my asshole unpuckered. Samwise the Ripped would carry this broken wannabe Frodo to the precipice of victory.
I put him on belay and once again he began to swim beautifully – this time in the ocean of off-widths. He pushed a single number 5 Camalot up the entirety of the pitch, transforming instantly from Samwise the Jacked to Gimli the dwarf, brandishing his battle-axe. The telepathy returned and I could hear him challenging the gods once more. But I believe they remained silent, in awe of a true warrior.
He summited the magnificent tower and put me on belay. I cramped and moaned my way up the entirety of the pitch – as I do with most multipitches. Anyways.
Upon the top we took our 3rd and final selfie. We had done it. Six whole pitches. My junior varsity coach would have been proud. Kind of. I’m sure we both felt like proud, vicarious fathers. I wanted to say “I’m proud of you son,” but I refrained because Dr. G is ten years older than me. We took in one final view of the valley. A moment of perfect reflection. The utilitarian in Dr. G was quiet and solemn.
The whole thing took place in less than 24 hours - from the night winds above the abyss to the soft blue morning skies upon The Rectory to the redness of the evening sun upon Castleton. I wish I could say that it took less than 24 hours for my hypochondria to go away, but life is rarely so gentle. But as we sat upon the conquered tower, life was gentle. And kind. And magnificent. For a moment, at least. I felt as though I had truly cast my burden into the fire.
I knew that the physical manifestation of anxiety induced symptoms for ALS would likely never return, but I also knew other strange and rare diseases would come to take its place. I still have occasional episodes of hypochondria, some almost as intense and some not so much. Maybe it’s a side effect of the late twenties.
And so, as the sun began to descend to her perfect slumber, we prepared our rappel. I tried summoning the Eagles of Manwe, but they never came, so we rapped down and stumbled to the car where Gollum and friends were waiting.
That was the last great adventure I had with Dr. G. He remained in the Shire of the Midwest, and I was called to the undying lands of the West. And even though I may have forgotten the ancient art of making tape gloves or the granular feeling of sandstone, I will still dream of future endeavors with wild and weird friends like Samwise and Gollum.
I could never properly expound what profound effects this adventure had on me. All I know is that it is one those rare and beautiful memories that I will cherish forever, and that I now find myself more often chasing life instead of running away from death. I also know that in some corner of the world, at some nexus of time, I will find some semblance of normalcy among wild and weird friends and places. Anyways.